Tubelight: Salman Khan cycling reminds us of Bollywood's unusual promotional gimmicks

In a bid to generate as much publicity as possible for his upcoming film, Salman Khan was seen riding his eco-bicycle , wearing a hoodie with ‘Tubelight’ embossed on it. It was refreshing to see a jolly Khan waving to his fans but the incident also brought back memories of some bizarre promotional tactics that celebrities have resorted to in the past. Here’s a recap of some of most amusing promotional techniques used in Bollywood for film promotions.

Haircuts by Aamir Khan

Aamir Khan took to the streets of the Delhi in 2008 to promote his mystery drama film Ghajini. Khan sported a peculiar haircut in the film, which went on to become a rage among youngsters. Khan was seen giving haircuts to people in Delhi in a makeshift hair salon, a few days before the release of the film.

Post-midnight chats on social media

To promote their erotic thriller Khamoshiyan, the makers of the film went  to the extent of getting Sapna Pabbi, the main lead, to talk to men on social media post-midnight. According to Mid-Day the chats were ‘fun and flirtatious’, with most questions filtered out.

Imposter Aamir

Aamir Khan is known to go all out with promotions and with three idiots, he crossed all imaginable limits during the promotional phase of 3 Idiots. Khan disguised himself as different people and went across the country meeting people and roaming about in public. The audiences were shocked when it was later revealed that Khan had been loitering around the country in different avatars to draw attention to his film, which went on to break box-office records in that year.

Trailer launch on adult websites

It is a well known fact that Sunny Leone quit the adult industry for a career in Bollywood years ago. However, in a strange move, the makers of Ragini MMS 2 took advantage of Leone’s past association by launching the trailer of the film on adult websites.  A Balaji representative confirmed the information in a statement given to news18.com . 

Ranveer Singh dressing up as Krrish

Social media went crazy the day a video of an unusually energetic Ranveer Singh dancing to ‘Main Aisa Kyun Hoon’ dressed up as Krrish was released on social media. In the run up to Bang Bang’s release, Hrithik Roshan challenged a couple of celebrities to do wacky things and Singh, being his usual excited self, took the dare to another level by stopping traffic and dancing in middle of a busy road in a Krrish costume. The video went viral on social media and gave huge promotional push to Bang Bang.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui selling innerwear for Freaky Ali promotions

Yes. This happened.